What an awesome weekend. As some of you know, Chris and I have been working for 8 Legs Racing for a few years now, and as a thank you, they signed us all up to participate in the GT Sprints/Challenge last weekend at Calabogie.

We wanted to do the test day for a few reasons:
1. The e36 hadn’t run in over a year.
2. Chris and I had never driven #710 (yellow e46)
3. Chris had never driven #411 (red e36)
4. Arek hasn’t driven all year and wanted seat time
5. Eric ran 2 laps at ICAR this year..

We had planned an internal tournament for 8-Legs Racing: We’d each drive specific cars for GT Challenge, but for the sprints, we’d bounce from car-to-car-to-car, and whoever got the fastest cumulative time (by adding your fastest lap in each car) would win! The two e46s are in GT2 for the sprints, and the e36 is GT3. All the cars are running in the same class for GT Challenge – in GS.

Friday:

Test day! Roll the cars out on Friday morning, fire them up to warm them up....

#747 (black/orange e46) decides to self destruct: The plastic timing chain guides destroyed themselves. Sweet – good start to a weekend.
So we register the two other cars and start alternating drivers in each session, while the other guys slowly (VERY slowly) start taking the front end of 747 off and pulling the motor apart. First session out is Chris and Arek. So far so good. Arek comes in and says Shawn – take the yellow car out next session. Ok – that’s the car I’m most intimidated by, but at the same time most excited about driving - Cool.

Oh and by the way, it’s very tail happy at high speed.

Wait.

What?

High speed?!?! Umm... alright... I guess....

So next session out, I take the yellow car out. HOLY CRAP. That thing is awesome. The pedals: perfect. Balance: ok not so perfect but manageable. Sound: insane. Feel: ridiculous. I love that car.

My car feels like a boat compared to that thing. It’s raw, solid, uncensored. A screaming banshee waiting to rip you apart. But at the same time, it WANTS to carry you to P1. So freaking cool. And the sound – OMG. You may have seen my sprint video – that whine sounds like you’re in a jet fighter (not that I’ve ever been in one but yeah). You can better hear the engine RPM in the driver seat, so between that and the drivetrain whine, it’s a symphony of adrenaline resonating in your helmet.

The practice day finishes off well – The best time so far in #710 is a 2:20.1 (wow, slow considering it ran a 2:14 in CTCC last year). The track feels slow – or maybe it’s just the tires we’re running – or maybe we just suck lol.

Friday night we finish pulling 747 apart, fish all the plastic bits out of the oil pan, and bolt it back up. Ready for tech tomorrow!